FIFTEllNTII ANNUAL MEETING. 91 



may set out trees in the highway, and protect them by suitable 

 posts and stakes. Every person who sliall remove or injure 

 any ornamental or shade tree planted in any highway, or 

 the posts or stakes, intended for its protection, except imme- 

 diateh- before his own dooryard, without the written order 

 of the selectmen, shall be fined, etc. (General Statutes, Sec- 

 tions 2041 and 2042). Grand jurors and other prosecuting 

 officers have jurisdiction of this offense as of other crimes. 



The selectmen may also designate certain trees within the 

 limits of highways, for the purpose of ornament and shade, 

 by driving into each a nail or spike with the letter C on it, 

 and grand jurors may prosecute for their injury. The stat- 

 ute provides that the owner of the adjoining property may 

 remove them or cut them down by the written consent of the 

 officials authorized to designate. (General Statutes, Sec. 2043.) 

 As the owner of the land abutting on the highway is ordi- 

 narily the owner of the trees standing in the highway in 

 front of his land, our Courts may determine that these stat- 

 utes creating protected and designated trees are unconstitu- 

 tional, if protected and designated without his consent. 

 Certainly persons or corporations having a right to maintain 

 structures in the highway would not be liable to the penalties 

 for interfering with protected or designated trees where such 

 interference was under a claim of right, and not malicious. 



Xow we come to bounty trees. These are elm, maple, 

 tulip, ash, basswood, oak, black walnut, hickory, apple, pear 

 or clierry trees, for the planting, protecting and cultivating 

 of which along any public highway, a person shall receive 

 an annual bounty from the state of ten cents for each tree. 

 Any person who shall cut down or injure any tree upon which 

 the State has paid a bounty or which has been set out by a 

 village society, without the written consent of a majority of 

 the Selectmen, is liable to a penalty to be imposed as in other 

 criminal cases (General Statutes, Sections 4439 and 4440). 

 Bounty trees like the others, however, must, so far as this 

 Statute is concerned, yield to the rights of persons and cor- 

 porations who have the privilege of maintaining structures 

 in the highwav. 



